Estimating the effect of hypoxia on economic rents from the brown shrimp fishery in the Gulf of Mexico
Abstract
The overall goal of this analysis is to quantify the effect of hypoxia on economic
outcomes of interest, including catch, revenue, catch per unit effort (CPUE) and revenue
per unit effort (RPUE) for the brown shrimp fishery in the Gulf of Mexico using spatially
explicit data. To isolate the effect of hypoxia on fishing outcomes from confounding
factors, we use spatial and temporal variation of hypoxia and take advantage of additional
variation: the presence of areas with little to no hypoxia close to areas greatly
affected by hypoxia. We employ a differences-in-differences-in-differences (DIDID)
estimator, controlling for potential cofounders, including the brown shrimp life and
growth cycle and state policies, to isolate the true treatment effect. We find that
seasonal hypoxia has a positive, statistically significant effect on catch, revenue,
CPUE and RPUE. Estimates of this effect on catch and revenue range from a 62% - 86%
increase for seasonal hypoxia and a 63% - 73% increase for persistent hypoxia. For
CPUE and RPUE, estimates of this effect range from a 32% - 39% increase for seasonal
hypoxia and a 36% - 47% increase for persistent hypoxia. However, when we regress
catch of different “classes,” or sizes, of shrimp, our results indicate that landings
of large shrimp decrease in the presence of persistent and seasonal hypoxia whereas
landings of small shrimp increase significantly. These findings corroborate studies
of the effect of hypoxia on shrimp at the organism and population levels, and the
estimated effects are consistent for multiple variants of a basic regression model.
Type
Master's projectPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/3653Citation
Kociolek, Erika (2011). Estimating the effect of hypoxia on economic rents from the brown shrimp fishery in
the Gulf of Mexico. Master's project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/3653.Collections
More Info
Show full item record
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Rights for Collection: Nicholas School of the Environment
Works are deposited here by their authors, and represent their research and opinions, not that of Duke University. Some materials and descriptions may include offensive content. More info